DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The U.S. military’s most senior enlisted service member addressed National Guardsmen at an annual enlisted National Guard conference in Daytona Beach, Florida, July 31.
Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman, or SEAC, David L. Isom emphasized how the Guard’s long-term global partnerships give it a lasting edge over adversaries, warned that today’s operational tempo and the accelerating pace of military technology demand constant adaptation and stressed that taking care of people, not just equipment, must remain the top priority.
“Looking around this room, I see an incredible Guard Nation, standing watch every day, at home and abroad, in and out of uniform, and you've been doing it since 1636,” Isom said to Guard Soldiers and Airmen in attendance from across the nation.
Isom highlighted the Department of War National Guard Bureau State Partnership Program, or SPP, which pairs National Guard elements from every state, three territories and the District of Columbia, with partner nations’ militaries in long-term security cooperation relationships.
For more than 30 years, the SPP has built partnerships with 116 nations around the globe. These partnerships foster enduring relationships among Guardsmen and their foreign counterparts, which Isom said is a unique advantage of the National Guard.
“That's a model that ensures that those repeated visits by familiar faces, as they work together and they build that trust over time, that long human-to-human continuity is one of our military's asymmetric advantages,” Isom said. “Our adversaries can build bases, but they can't build Citizen-Soldiers.”
As a result, Guard and partner-nation counterparts are not meeting for the first time during a crisis. They already understand how to work together.
“They're not exchanging business cards on the battlefield,” he said. “They already know each other. They understand each other's tactics. They understand how they operate.”
That kind of seamless integration is essential, he said, because the security environment the Guard and Joint Force face today is more challenging than at any previous point in the nation’s history.
Citing high operational tempo across domains, including domestic air defense, the U.S. southern border, wildfire response, security support in American cities and overseas deployments, Isom said the pace requires the Guard to simultaneously handle current missions while developing new equipment, tactics and technology for future conflicts.
“The future of warfare is not waiting for us to catch up,” he said, pointing to China’s reported development of a sixth-generation fighter as an example of the pace of change U.S. forces face. “It's arriving time now, and the Guard is at the epicenter of it all.”
Modernization funding, equipment and training cannot be an active-component-only priority. Isom said it must extend to the National Guard as well.
“We need the Guard to continue fighting and winning across every domain and into the distant future,” he said. “As the Guard evolves and adapts right alongside the active-duty force, we've got to stay focused on those advancements in your equipment, your platforms, your training, your tactics and importantly, the funding that is required to support modernization.”
Above all else, the future of the Guard, the Joint Force and the nation ultimately depends on its people, he said.
Isom and Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, or SEA, John Raines are focused on quality-of-life issues facing Guardsmen, including administrative processes for orders and medical care.
Isom’s assignments have included a full range of duties in SEAL Teams at Theater Special Operations Commands, and across the joint environment. He invoked a principle he described as one of the special operations community’s “SOF Truths”: humans are more important than hardware.
“We've got to keep our eye on the ball when it comes to quality-of-life issues and ensure that our service members and their families have the resources they need to thrive, not just survive,” he said.
Isom closed by praising the Guard’s talent and adaptability, calling on attendees to keep deployed service members, their families and fallen service members in mind.
“I’ve never been more confident in our future,” Isom said. “We undoubtedly have the finest fighting force in the history of our planet … Thank you for who you are, Guard nation. Thank you for what you do every day. Let's keep driving forward to ensure we win today and build the force of the future that our nation needs.”
SEAC David Isom is the 6th senior enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the most senior enlisted service member by position in the U.S. Armed Forces, serving as the principal enlisted advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.